Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day020.19
Last-Modified: 2000/07/24
Q. Do you accept that without the existence of such a body
there would have been such major concessions in the
Holocaust story that have occurred since the end of World
War II?
A. No, to the question and no to the premise.
Q. Have there been major concessions in the story since the
end of World War II?
A. You would have to tell me exactly what they were and
demonstrate that they were based on the work of the
Institute of Historical Review before I accepted that.
Q. Is it true that the Israeli authority at Yad Vashim now
officially agree that the Nazis never manufactured soap
from bodies?
A. I think that has long been the case. Indeed ----
Q. Can you put a date on it?
A. No, I cannot, no.
Q. Was it about 1989?
A. I would have to see documentation of that.
Q. Do you agree that the figure of Auschwitz has been brought
down from 4 million to 1.5 million?
A. We have already been through that.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: We had this, I think, last Thursday.
MR IRVING: I am just trying to look at the concessions
that
have been made largely as a result of revisionist
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agitation, if I can put it like that?
A. I do not think, Mr Irving, that that was the result of
the
work of the Institute of Historical Review which was
not
founded at the time that that number was changed.
MR IRVING: Have you read the work of Michael Berenbaum --
I am
sorry, of Aberhard Jackeln who states that it was not
until 1977 that the whole of this Holocaust research
industry began, that the historians started doing
their
job?
A. I think we have already been through that, I think,
when
you cross-examined Professor Browning, that certainly
I would need to see a copy of that statement by
Professor
Jackeln, but if he does say that, then he is certainly
not
correct.
Q. You would not agree, therefore, that the revisionists,
having created the Aunt Sally which the genuine
historians
needed, the scholars needed, you do not agree with the
premise that the scholar would not have done the job
as
rigorously as they have had to?
A. No, not at all, no. I have to say, on the whole, I do
not
serious scholars pay any attention to the work of the
Institute of Historical Review at all.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I wonder whether the time has
not
come to move on to what is important which is page
205,
what you have written about Hitler.
MR IRVING: Well, I, in fact, leapt on to page 207, my
Lord.
. P-170
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Good.
MR IRVING: Would you look at that quotation at the top of
page
208?
A. 208? Yes.
Q. Yes. Have you left anything out of that quotation, do
you
think?
A. Not that I can see.
Q. It is about the euthanasia programme, is it not?
A. Yes.
Q. If I start reading about where it says: "About a
quarter
of a million hospital beds", I am going to read it
from
the book which is the actual source, which is the 1977
edition at page 20?
A. Could I have a copy, please? Page 20?
Q. Yes. "About a quarter of a million hospital beds were
required" -- this is the actual text -- "for Germany's
mental institutions for Germany's disproportionately
large
insane population, a result of centuries of lax and
indiscriminate marriage laws: of some 7 or 800,000
people
all told, about 10 per cent were permanently
institutionalized. Others were in and out of
hospitals.
They occupied bed space and the attention of skilled
medical personnel which Hitler now urgently needed for
the
treatment of the casualties of his coming campaigns".
You
missed passages out without indicating it, have you
not?
A. Let me just have a look at this.
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Q. Three passages have vanished?
A. Well, let me try to sort this out. Certainly, those
two
passages, the passage you read and this passage, would
seem to indicate that. Now, here I refer to, it is
actually pages 227 to 8 of the 1991 edition that I am
citing, as you can see from the bottom of the previous
page. Could I have the 1991 edition, please? We have
227
to 8. No, it is the wrong one. 227 to 8.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: About a third of the way down.
A. Right, let me read this from page 227 of the 1991
edition: "About a quarter of a million hospital beds
were
required for Germany's disproportionate large insane
population: of some 7 or 800,000 victims of insanity
all
told, about 10 per cent were permanently
institutionalized. They occupied bed space and the
attention of skilled medical personnel which Hitler
now
urgently needed for the treatment of the casualties of
his
coming campaigns".
So I have quoted absolutely correctly from
the
source that I give without any omissions at all.
Q. But you have not actually realized that, in fact, the
original quotation was fuller and you preferred the
abbreviated version to base your ----
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, really! What sort of a point
is
that?
MR IRVING: Page 209.
. P-172
A. May I just say, Mr Irving, I think you are entirely
right
to condense that quotation because the reference to
lax
marriage laws in 1977 is entirely wrong. German
marriage
laws up to the middle of the 19th century, in most of
south Germany, at least, were extremely strict. As
you
say yourself, you are condensing all the way along.
There
is no fault in that.
Q. Page 209, paragraph 4.1.8 please. This is the Night
of
the Long Knives?
A. Sorry, could you remind me?
Q. 4.1.8, 209?
A. 209? Yes.
Q. 209, you say in the final sentence of that paragraph
4.1.8: "Irving defended the Night of the Long Knives
in
June 1934". This is rather like saying I applauded
the
Holocaust, is it not?
A. No, I think it is somewhat different.
Q. I "defended the Night of the Long Knives"?
A. I go on in the next paragraph to outline your views.
You
say that "the SA was planning to" was underlined --
"overthrow Hitler's government". "In an act of rare
magnanimity Hitler ordered state pensions provided for
the
next of kin of the people murdered in the Knight of
the
Long Knives. Even so he began to suffer nightmares
and
could not sleep" although, in fact, as I point out,
Hitler
personally marked crosses against the names of
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considerable numbers of people that he ordered to be
murdered.
Q. I am going to come to that in a minute. The idea of
defending the Night of the Long Knives suggests that I
defended the murder of people when they were planning
a
revolution?
A. Well, the nub of it, of course, is were they planning
a
revolution or not.
Q. Well ----
A. And in any case, and also, of course, the murder, that
was
done wholly outside the judicial process.
Q. If I establish in a biography of Hitler that, in fact,
these SA leaders were plotting something, this is not
the
same as defending their murder, do you agree with
that?
A. I think it is -- I am prepared to jettison the word
"defending" and say "excusing". We have been down
this
road before.
Q. "Excusing" is almost as bad as "defending". But can
we
now move to the next paragraph where you are saying
that
the charges were trumped up. Do you not accept that
the
brown shirt movement were, in fact, planning the
overthrow
of the Nazi government of Germany?
A. I think the evidence is very thin.
Q. Have you read various works on the subject, for
example,
by Heinz Werner?
A. I have read some.
. P-174
Q. So you have read some works, but just on the basis of
having read some works, you are prepared to say that I
am
wrong and that these other authors are wrong?
A. Well, let me see what I say. You see: "Most authors
have
seen the Night of the Long Knives as a shocking
violation
of moral and legal norms" ----
Q. Yes.
A. ---- "in which Hitler not only brought retrospectively
trumped-up charges against the SA leaders of plotting
a
coup, but also used the opportunity to bump off
politicians, such as Kurt von Schleicher and Gustav
von
Kahr, who he felt knew too much about his past, or
whom he
simply strongly disliked, and against whom no
conceivable
political suspicions could be directed in 1934".
Q. On the basis of your limited knowledge of the Night of
the
Long Knives, what evidence do you have that Hitler
ordered
the murder of Schleicher which was an appalling act --
there is no question -- that Hitler was personally
involved in that? Do you have any evidence?
A. I do not present it here, no. I would have to do some
research on that.
Q. And what evidence do you have for saying that Hitler
personally ----
A. Let me respond to that by saying can you present
evidence
that he did not? Maybe that is the way to go.
Q. Are you familiar with the excellent paper on the
murder of
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General Schleicher that was published by the Institute
of
History about 35 years ago, giving the entire
background
of the case?
A. I thought you did not read work by other historians,
Mr Irving.
Q. For some historians I make exceptions?
A. Ah, so you do read work by other historians?
Q. This was a documentation. You appreciate the
difference
between a documentation and a book? Two lines from
the
bottom you say: "Hitler personally marked crosses
against
the names of scores of people on the night in
question".
What evidence do you have for that?
A. That is what I understand from my reading. I agree,
I cite in footnote 11 the sources which I have used
for my
extremely brief account of this.
Q. So this is one of those cases where the historian has
sat
in his book lined cave and taken four books off a
shelf
and written a fifth, effectively?
A. No.
Q. He has not really added to our knowledge?
A. I do not think -- oh, you mean me?
Q. Yes.
A. Well, if you can show that they are wrong or somebody
can
show that they are wrong, then I would be quite happy
to
accept that.
Q. If you can take it from me that Field Marshal Milch
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described to me personally, sitting at the Execution
Council, together with Himmler and the other leading
members of that gang, watching as Himmler read out a
list
of names and they personally approved and wrote little
ticks against the names of those to be liquidated
which
were handed out through the door to the flunkers who
ordered it carried out, that this was the way the
Execution Council took place, and that Hitler was
nowhere
near, would you accept that version? It is contained
in
one of the books you have read, the rise and fall of
the
Luftwaffe?
A. No, Mr Irving. That is a recollection a long time
after
the event. It is not a contemporary document. You
yourself would be the first to impugn the reliability
of
that source if that source if it said something you
did
not like.
Q. Would you accept that Milsche kept diaries throughout
that
episode and also that Milsche would hardly relate
something to me which under circumstances could be
taken
as counting against himself if he was a participant in
or
an eyewitness of this Execution Council?
A. Well, this is getting rather hypothetical. If you
present
to me documents that demonstrate that what I say here
is
wrong, I will be quite happy to accept it.
Q. That is not the way it works, Professor.
A. I thought it was the way it worked.
. P-177
Q. You are saying here in an expert report which you now
concede is written on rather flimsy evidence that Hitler
personally ----
A. I do not think I did that at all, Mr Irving.
Q. --- marked crosses against the names of scores of people?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think if you are wanting to say that there
is documentary support for what you write, Mr Irving, and
for what Professor Evans criticises, you really ought to
be equipped to show Professor Evans what you rely on. For
example, I mean, did you record what General Milsche was
telling you about the absence of Hitler, and so on?

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